


I did everything I want

by daykid



Series: garden song [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Dreams, Kinda, Light plot, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Non-Graphic Smut, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27597746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daykid/pseuds/daykid
Summary: “You were gone too long,” the trees whisper. “They have forgotten all about you.”Fear fails to grip Seungkwan’s heart at this. He mostly feels relieved.“Finally,” he says, before closing his eyes again.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Series: garden song [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017589
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	I did everything I want

**Author's Note:**

> not beta-d T__T, based on this [textpost](https://jupiter-suggestion.tumblr.com/post/190756660902/time-passes-too-quickly-you-lay-down-in-the)

Time passes too quickly. Seungkwan lays down in a forest.

“Just five minutes,” he says to the trees. “Just five minutes to be alone. Then I’ll get up and go on living.”

He closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, there are saplings around him that have grown massive and there are flowers blooming in the spaces between his shoelaces.

“You were gone too long,” the trees whisper. “They have forgotten all about you.”

Fear fails to grip Seungkwan’s heart at this. He mostly feels relieved.

“Finally,” he says, before closing his eyes again.

The next time he wakes, Seungkwan is on a beach. The blistering sun makes it quite insufferable to keep laying down, so he gets up. He brushes sand off his clothes, watching it get carried away by the wind. The air is rich with scents of tangerines and seasalt, filling Seungkwan’s lungs with every breath.

There’s something in the lake, he notices, and it looks like it’s dying. The water is being thrashed in, sending droplets flying everywhere. Seungkwan catches sight of an arm. Then a leg. Then a head and he realizes, rationally, that it’s a boy.

His muscles starts moving on their own. _A goal_ , his body tells him. He has a goal. Save the boy.

So he does.

Seungkwan walks into the water with all his clothes on, the cold water crawling up his legs through the bottom of his jeans. When he gets to where the person is, he is about hip deep in the lake; it's not nearly deep enough to constitute drowning, but to each their own.

He grabs the boy by his arms, dragging them both backwards towards the shore. When they’ve reached the beach, Seungkwan sets the boy down on the sand. He lies down beside him, a sudden wave of exhaustion taking root in his bones. The ex-drownee (drowner?) sputters up water. It’s a nasty, gurgling sound, like he’s choking.

Oh shit, Seungkwan totally forgot about CPR.

He flops over lazily, dragging himself upright with a full-bodied sigh. He grabs the boy’s face— a handsome one, he’ll give him that— and angles it towards his. Just as he goes in to give a breath, the guy coughs _a lot_ of water up. It gets into Seungkwan's mouth. Gross.

He wipes his face, promising to never help someone from dying ever again.

The boy shoots upright, knocking Seungkwan off himself and off to the side. He continues coughing.

Then, between breaths, “who the fuck—” a cough, “are you?” followed by another cough.

Indignant from the ungrateful tone, Seungkwan turns away.

“I’m tired,” he announces, and lies down in the sand. It’s uncomfortable, but he’s trying to make a point.

The boy makes an discomforted noise. It makes Seungkwan glare up at him, desperate to see what all the fuss is about. He’s met with wide, brown eyes and wild, brown hair.

“What do you want?” Seungkwan mutters, his shoulders bunching up in irritation.

The boy tilts his head to the side, all curiosity, “am I dreaming?”

“Maybe,” Seungkwan replies. “Maybe not. Who cares.”

Concern takes over the boy’s countenance. The sheet earnesty shocks Seungkwan, even if he doesn’t show it.

“Are you upset?”

_They have all forgotten about you._

“No.”

And Seungkwan is sleeping again.

The boy is in Seungkwan’s next waking place. They’re in an abandoned car, sitting next to each other, pinkies intertwined. Seungkwan snatches his hand away like the touch alone is burning. The sudden movement is enough to wake the boy, who starts up with enough force to hit his head on the roof of the car.

Despite himself, Seungkwan asks, “are you okay… uh…”

The boy looks surprised to see him, “Hansol. My name is Hansol.”

“Alright. Are you okay, Hansol?”

He ignores the question.

“Am I dreaming again?”

Seungkwan would like to believe that this is his dream, that he is the one in control. So he shakes his head.

“Don’t ask silly things like that. Let’s get out of here.”

They exit the car and come out to an empty field. There’s no signs of life as far as Seungkwan’s eyes can see, except for Hansol, obviously. Even so, Seungkwan starts walking without any clear direction. _Away,_ his body tells him. He is walking away. Perhaps towards another goal, another new purpose.

Hansol grabs onto his sleeve.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

Seungkwan shrugs, “I was kinda just hoping to find another place to sleep.”

“Is that all you do here? It’s a dream, you know. You can do anything.”

But Seungkwan doesn’t want to do anything. He just wants to lay down.

“You can go do that, then, for all I care,” he says and keeps walking.

Hansol makes another one of those noncommittal noises, but he follows after him anyways. Seungkwan has no idea what that means, but it means something.

He doesn’t know when the feeling started, just that ever since it came into his life, it never left. Seungkwan is good with words; he’s won awards for it at high school debate competitions and frequently talks himself of any and all bad situations. For some reason, he has nothing to say to himself that could dispel the deep, bubbling fear under his skin like he is missing something. Maybe it’s direction. Or permanence. Or meaning. All he does know when he finds it, everything in his life will naturally fall back into place, and he can go home. Everything between now and then are just meaningless distractions.

Hansol has been proving himself to be good at distracting.

Seungkwan realizes the boy is a little entertaining a few dreams later. He’s inquisitive and sometimes a little clueless, which makes good fun for Seungkwan who loves to talk and tease. They wake up wherever they wake up, walk around for a while, and talk. They talk until they tire themselves out, and then they sleep.

The content of their exchanges varies, but it's never anything of substance, never anything Seungkwan can recall the next dream and state as something he knows about Hansol. Maybe he could if he didn't start each conversation with the same, silly question.

“Am I dreaming?”

Seungkwan sighs, “you tell me.”

Hansol makes a face at him and Seungkwan has to ignore a weird urge to pinch the guy’s cheeks. His face looks incredibly gentle under the warm sunlight filtering through a canopy of trees above them. He looks almost beautiful.

They’ve woken this time in a treehouse impossibly high off the ground. After playing around with what little was inside the house, they set off on a walk along the treetops by travelling over little bridges which connect each stump. It’s quite peaceful.

“Nevermind,” Hansol dismisses. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere,” Seungkwan says. He doesn’t need to turn around to know that Hansol is probably rolling his eyes.

“Why do you always have to be like… that?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… you’re just so… vague. Yeah, just, say what you mean, dude. It’s okay to not know things.”

Seungkwan stills, then shakes his head.

“Don’t call me dude.”

“But we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“If you consider the definition of friend as two people in the same place at the same time,” Seungkwan says, “then, sure.”

Hansol leaves it at that.

 _He’s just a distraction_ , Seungkwan has to remind himself. That’s all he needs right now.

“Why are you here, Hansol? How did you get here?” Seungkwan wonders aloud one day, as they’re walking through an ancient city. It’s made of sand, mostly, time having worn away any other material possessing life in any form. Hansol said they should look for treasure, or something. Maybe he only suggested it because he’s noticed the way Seungkwan perks up at a mission, or maybe he’s just bored.

“I don’t know,” the other boy answers honestly.

“And you’re okay with that? Not knowing?” Seungkwan surely wouldn’t be.

“I mean, sure. All I know is that…”

Seungkwan stops walking so he can look back at Hansol. He wonders what it feels like to talk to someone without ever looking at them. Most of the time, Seungkwan feels like he’s just talking to himself, but he’s pretty okay with that. What if Hansol isn’t?

Seungkwan realized he’s been worrying a lot about how Hansol feels lately.

“What?”

Hansol blinks up at him with those honest, non-threatening eyes again. If he was an animal in the wild, Seungkwan figures he’d probably be a deer or something else that got eaten by bigger, scarier animals.

“I want to stay. With you.”

Something sinister flips in Seungkwan’s heart. He turns away so Hansol can’t see his face.

“Okay,” he mumbles. “Then stay.”

They’re in a maze, one of those old, English ones monarchs would put in their backyards to watch people get disoriented in. Or the ones from ancient Greece that they used to torture people. Both origins set a precedent for this dream.

“Hansol?” Seungkwan calls out. “Where are you? Hansol?”

He thinks he can faintly hear someone calling to him too, but maybe it’s just his own voice echoing back at him. Eitherway, he has no other leads, so he follows the voice.

Then, he hears it. A faint ‘help.’

Seungkwan breaks out into a sprint, winding his way down many turns. He feels a lot more afraid than he should be, more than he’s used to.

“Hansol?” he yells again, fear not even concealing itself in his tone.

He runs and runs until his legs feel like they can’t run anymore, and he starts up into a run again. His hands are covered in scratches from stumbling into the hedges. He can barely breathe, but he keeps searching.

When he finally sees Hansol, Seungkwan cries out in relief.

“Hansol!” he calls, catching the other boy's attention. He looks like he is out of breath too, but they both run towards each other. It looks and feels like a movie. A very cliché one.

It ends like a movie too.

After their first kiss, Seungkwan and Hansol’s dreams get more mundane. They stopped waking up in underwater shipwrecks and instead found themselves in cities and subway trains. (If he’s lucky, Seungkwan wakes up in a forest, albeit the forests are usually just a few steps away from a suburban town, but it’s still a forest.)

Today, they wake up in a bed. Maybe it’s in a condominium, Seungkwan can’t really tell, he doubts that it matters. It’s night out, with stars lazily blinking in and out of existence as they please. He stares out the window, wishing he was anywhere but here. It reminds him too much of what he left behind.

Then, Hansol says, “do you want to do anything today?”

What a silly question. Seungkwan always wants to do something. Hansol knows that.

“Like what?” he asks, not voicing how incredulous the suggestion is. They don’t really go on walks anymore. Or talk. Hansol usually makes breakfast or something plain like that. Then they would watch a television show, or read a book about adventures. Maybe he’ll suggest groceries as their next great conquest.

Seungkwan is beginning to feel like he has outgrown his life. His yearning has become far too large and the world far too small.

“I don’t know…” Hansol says in a tone which indicates he _does_ know, he’s just too embarrassed to say it. Seungkwan has no idea what he’ll say next, but then Hansol’s hand makes its way to his wrist, his body makes its way into his personal space and if all the television shows have taught him anything, he knows exactly what’s coming next. “Are you a virgin?”

“No,” Seungkwan lies. “You?”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says, “who cares?”

“Right.”

Hansol’s hand is still gripping Seungkwan’s wrist. He decides he doesn’t really mind it; it’s warm, it’s comforting. He puts his own hand on top of Hansol’s, giving him time to speak.

“Do you wanna…” he mumbles, embarrassed, “you know. With me?”

And Seungkwan is a little bored, and Seungkwan needs a little distraction, and Seungkwan has grown tired of brushing off Hansol’s lingering gazes, so he says “sure.”

Hansol laughs nervously, “am I dreaming?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Then there’s clothes coming off. It feels a bit clumsy, not in the moment at all like how it is in the movies, but they’re doing it. There’s need behind it, not want, not for Seungkwan.

Need makes people sloppy.

Seungkwan knows this as he looks down at Hansol once they're both fully situated. He looks like a mess with hair matted to his forehead and his face crinkled in pain. Hansol's mouth parts, he’s asking Seungkwan to _move please, just move._

“I’m dreaming,” Hansol states. It’s not a question.

That kind of pisses Seungkwan off.

“How would you—”

“This isn’t real. You’re not real. I’m just imagining you.”

Seungkwan frowns, “who says this isn’t my dream? Don’t get so full of yourself.”

“No,” Hansol says with enough certainty to make Seungkwan have doubts. “I know you. I just met you— in real life, I mean. This isn’t you. I’m sure of it.”

Seungkwan shifts uncomfortably in the bed, wringing his fingers in the blanket.

“What do you mean ‘real life’?” he interrogates, “I’m real— this, this is real.”

Hansol’s concern is so potent Seungkwan can’t stand to look at him.

"Don't you remember me?" he asks sadly, "Vernon. Don't you remember that name?"

Seungkwan shakes his head, "no. Your name is Hansol."

“Seungkwan,” Hansol says, “there’s people waiting for you. Outside of here.”

He shakes his head again, but it's only to comfort himself, however little it brings.

“No. I’ve been gone for too long. They’ve all forgotten.”

“That’s not true.”

Hansol’s conviction gets stronger but his grip, previously on Seungkwan’s waist, loosens. Seungkwan tries to grab onto his hand as Hansol slips out of the bed and walks away. He’s too tired to reach further. He’s not even sure if he wants to.

“You should wake up soon,” Hansol says in the doorway. Then, he leaves.

Seungkwan runs to the door but when he opens it, he’s back at the labyrinth. He runs everywhere searching for Hansol. He can feel beads of sweat gathering on his forehead and his heart about to burst out of his chest. But he runs.

Then, his body is slowing down. Seungkwan looks at his feet and sees sand. He looks up and sees ancient city ruins. He keeps getting dragged deeper. Thrashing only makes it worse, but Seungkwan can’t stop. He just keeps thinking about how he really, _really_ doesn’t want to die right now.

As soon as he’s swallowed by the earth, he’s falling from the sky. He slams through several wooden bridges and treetops, tearing his shirt in his descent before landing in a lake. Seungkwan’s body feels so heavy, he can’t even fathom keeping his head above the water. It doesn’t register to him that he’s drowning. The cold waters are just so welcoming, so he lets it drag him under.

Seungkwan passes through every dream he's had. He watches himself die in each one of them, whether it be by flaming car or runaway train, and he watches it alone.

He is back at the start. The roots of the forest have taken hold inside his veins, deep into his muscles and sinew. His breath is shared among his lungs and the trees. Life grows from his flesh— an inescapable, floral infection.

He can’t move. Seungkwan watches flowers bloom just above his skin, each petal stained with crimson.

Honestly, it feels a bit nice to be needed. Even if the need is a bunch of plants depending on his body to house life. The welcoming feeling is almost enough to keep him here, almost. He knows this feeling of need. He knows it’ll leave him too, but not if he leaves first.

He’s had enough of this. Seungkwan rips the flowers from his skin, one by one. It hurts, but he does it anyway. He runs his hands through his hair, plucking out sticks and leaves.

“I’m going home,” Seungkwan yells at the forest once he gets up. “Let me go home.”

The wind howls around him, “it’s been to long—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he seethes. “Take me home.” _I want to keep living._

The forest roars even louder. Leaves around him fly up into the air, spinning around like a tornado. The trees bend downwards, as if to trap Seungkwan in. But he holds fast, fists clenched, protesting death. He can hear his blood in his ears. It grows louder and louder and louder and—

Suddenly, it’s quiet.

“Finally,” the forest says.

With that, Seungkwan wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> sprint fic in between bigger projects  
> lmk your thoughts? there's going to be a longer pt.2, this is kinda just the prequel
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bookkeu)


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